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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121535">Breaking the Rules</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyctae/pseuds/Nyctae'>Nyctae</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Can be platonic or romantic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enoch-centric, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:07:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,946</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121535</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyctae/pseuds/Nyctae</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Enoch knew he wasn’t allowed in <i>his </i>room, but he didn’t care much for rules. None of the children were allowed in the room at the end of the upstairs hallway. It used to be Victor’s room, but it was now more of Miss Peregrine’s personal mourning room.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alma La-Fey Peregrine &amp; Enoch O'Connor, Victor Bruntley &amp; Enoch O'Connor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Breaking the Rules</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>        Enoch knew he wasn’t allowed in <em> his </em> room, but he didn’t care much for rules. None of the children were allowed in the room at the end of the upstairs hallway. It used to be Victor’s room, but it was now more of Miss Peregrine’s personal mourning room.</p><p>        He clutched a bag tightly in his arms. He passed through the kitchen where Emma, Jacob, and Olive were talking over some tea. Their conversation paused, but before their curious question about the bag could be asked, Enoch rushed past and bolted up the stairs.</p><p>        Once upstairs, he began to tip-toe. The loud, obnoxious laughter from the kitchen nearly masked it, but Enoch could just barely hear the soft scratching of pen on paper from the headmistress’ room. Luckily, her door was closed, so he continued to tip-toe on his journey.</p><p>        Opening Victor’s door was a more difficult task, but thanks to plenty of practice, he managed to grab the key and unlock the door without making too much noise. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, he slipped into the room before shutting and locking it.</p><p>        He sat on the ground with his ear pressed against the door and waited. He listened for Miss Peregrine to leave her room and head downstairs. He kept waiting, becoming increasingly impatient with each tick of the clock. He began to lose hope; perhaps, Miss Peregrine would never go check on the children outside.</p><p>        He glanced out the window to see the bright, sunny day. Every day was a bright, sunny day. He could hear yelling from Hugh and Fiona. They were probably playing a game with the twins. If he could hear them, surely Miss Peregrine could too. Why couldn’t she just leave her room for ten minutes? That was all he needed.</p><p>        Something must have heard his prayers as he heard the screech of a chair scraping against the wooden floorboards. He heard footsteps travel down the hallway and diminish as they reached the staircase. It was finally time.</p><p>        Enoch pushed himself off the ground and carefully picked up the bag. He nervously made his way over to the bed and sat down on the edge. With shaky hands, he opened the bag and pulled out one of the cow hearts—still fresh from the harvest that morning.</p><p>        He pulled the blanket off of Victor’s torso and held the heart above. His body twitched as he focused his energy into the now beating heart. It wasn’t enough. He grabbed the second one and continued the ritual.</p><p>        To say he was scared was an understatement. Each time he brought Victor back, it became harder to do so the next time, and he was always afraid that it would just stop working. What good was his peculiarity if he couldn’t even bring his friend back for a few minutes?</p><p>        Enoch’s heart pounded while Victor remained lifeless. He grabbed a third heart; he usually only needed two at most. His breathing picked up as he pleaded, “Victor, please, wake up. Wake up, you damn fool! Victor, please, I need you to wake up. I… Just come on already!”</p><p>        He could feel the toll of his peculiarity on his body. He was already getting tired and upset. Why wouldn’t Victor just wake up already? </p><p><em>         It’s probably because he doesn’t want to wake up, you selfish prick. </em> It was common knowledge that Victor enjoyed the afterlife and did not want to come back, yet Enoch continued to occasionally bring him back for his own selfish desires.</p><p>        Waves of pain and exhaustion passed through his body, and tears pricked his eyes. He hadn’t cried in years, not since Victor left. Maybe this was his punishment for trying to bring a dead man back to what he considered hell.</p><p>        A frozen hand grasping his own contradicted that notion. He looked up at Victor and allowed a smile to creep on his face.</p><p>        “Victor! You woke up!” Enoch cried.</p><p>        It took a few moments for Victor to move his mouth and reply, “Why’d you bring me back, Enoch?”</p><p>        The question sent Enoch reeling. How was he supposed to answer that? <em>Because I’m selfish, and I needed to say a proper goodbye to my only friend?</em> <em>Because it’s getting harder to bring you back, and I needed to hear your voice one last time? Because I’m lonely, and the others can barely stand me?</em> </p><p>        He settled for a shrug and began to talk, “Someone new’s here. His name’s Jacob. I don’t like him very much, related to Abe, so you know Emma’s already fallin’ for him.”</p><p>        Victor nodded slowly and looked around the room. “Enoch, you can’t keep doing this.”</p><p>        “I know… I just wanted to see you one last time. It’s gettin’ dangerous, and I think we may have to leave the loop.”</p><p>        “That’s not a bad thing.”</p><p>        Was Victor daft? Of course, he was. He abandoned them and died! Didn’t he understand that meant they’d be leaving him behind forever?</p><p>        The cold of Victor’s hand seeped deep into Enoch’s skin as he squeezed it, bringing Enoch back to the present. Enoch swallowed thickly before the tears began to overflow again as he mumbled about having to leave Victor’s body behind.</p><p>        “You know that you probably can’t bring me back again even if you don’t leave, don’t you?” Victor asked. His speech was slow and broken up by long breaths. Enoch finally realised how distant and hollow his voice sounded compared to when he was alive and even the first time Enoch brought him back. </p><p>        He nodded. “I’m gonna miss you. Not that I don’t already,” he admitted in a whisper.</p><p>        “You’ll see me again one day,” Victor promised. The grip on his hand was loosening.</p><p>        “I don’t want you to leave,” Enoch murmured, squeezing Victor’s hand as if it would force more life back into him. He was beginning to get dizzy, and his body was sagging tiredly. He couldn’t keep him alive for much longer.</p><p>        He wasn’t as good at hiding the effects as he thought as Victor clearly noticed. “Just let go. I wanna go back. It ain’t fair to keep me here. I’m dead.”</p><p>        “It ain’t fair that you left m- us and got yourself killed!” Enoch argued, raising his voice.</p><p>        Victor smiled at his friend’s familiar temper and sank back into the pillows. “Goodbye, Enoch.”</p><p>        “Don’t you dare! Victor!” He felt Victor’s hand becoming limp in his own. Knowing this was his last chance, he squeezed it a final time and whispered, “Goodbye, Victor.”</p><p>        A few seconds later, the joints in Victor’s hands stiffened up, and his fingers seemed to somehow get even colder. It felt like a weight had simultaneously been lifted and dropped onto Enoch, and he had never felt more exhausted in his life. His tears didn’t cease, however. They dripped from his face onto his hands. The grief—knowing Victor was now truly gone forever—consumed him.</p>
<hr/><p>        Miss Peregrine finished writing a reply letter to Miss Avocet and decided to check on the children outdoors. There seemed to be more screaming than usual. She just hoped a fight hadn’t broken out.</p><p>        As soon as she stepped into the hallway, something caught her eye: the shiny key on the doorframe of Victor’s room. She remembered last placing it on the left side of the frame against the wall, but now it seemed to be in the middle and nearly hanging off the edge. She disregarded it. The stress of Jacob entering the loop and the hollowgasts was probably just messing with her memory.</p><p>        She made her way through the kitchen and outside, checking on all the children she saw; thankfully there was no fight but just an intense game between the children. Deciding that there was no reason to be concerned, she decided to return to her room.</p><p>        When she climbed the steps, she heard Enoch’s voice yelling. Peering down the hallway, she heard the noise from Victor’s room, and her suspicions were confirmed. She made her way to the room with long strides and swiftly unlocked the door. She opened the door, prepared to scold Enoch for both entering a room he was not allowed in and for bringing Victor back from the afterlife. She had already heard enough about the first time Jacob met Victor thanks to their resident dead-riser.</p><p>        She stepped in and scanned the room. Shrivelled, rotten hearts were left on the floor. Victor’s eyes were closed, and he was ghastly pale and unmoving while Enoch was sat on the edge of the bed, hunched over. His breathing was laboured, and his body shook and occasionally twitched: signs he had overexerted himself.</p><p>        “Mr O’Connor, it appears that you have forgotten about the rules,” she said sternly as she approached him. She expected her ill-tempered charge to argue or deny doing anything wrong. Instead, he refused to face her and sniffled.</p><p>        Miss Peregrine froze. She was surprised; she couldn’t recall a time Enoch had ever cried. Shaking herself out of the momentary shock, she repeated his name in a calmer tone, “Mr O’Connor.”</p><p>        This time he turned to face her. His paler than usual complexion accentuated his red, puffy eyes. His lower lip quivered before he hiccupped and dissolved into tears.</p><p>        She made her way over and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to keep her gaze away from Victor so that she could focus on her living charge. She didn’t know what to do. On one hand, she was tempted to simply tell him off for breaking the rules and send him to his room. Logic, on the other hand, screamed at her to help the clearly distressed boy. She was never one to show much affection or comfort as it made her uncomfortable—a leftover part of her childhood. </p><p>        Disregarding her own personal comforts, she placed a gentle hand on Enoch’s back. His breath immediately hitched, and he froze as if he had turned into a statue. Attempting to ignore the worry that overcame her, she moved her thumb back and forth and let out a quiet hum to regain his attention. He soon began to let out little whines and mumbled as his tears fell relentlessly. She tried to listen, but his words were slurred and incoherent between the gasps of breath.</p><p>        Victor’s room felt disconnected from the loop as if it were in its own dimension. It was melancholic and nearly silent while the window revealed the cheerful sun and happy screams of children.</p><p>        Once Enoch was no longer on the verge of hyperventilating, MIss Peregrine guided him to stand up with her. Keeping a hand on his shoulder, they passed Emma and Jacob on the way to Enoch’s room. Emma’s presumably snarky comment was shut down by a warning glance from the headmistress. </p><p>        When they reached his room, Enoch fell onto his bed, wiping away the stray tears that followed the tracks on his face. Miss Peregrine hovered in the doorway for a few moments. Though she was curious about what happened, she had an idea, and it was not the appropriate time to pry. Enoch had just calmed down, and she knew he would refuse to talk right now.</p><p>        “Get some rest, Mr O’Connor. We will discuss your actions another at time. I will send Mr Portman down later with some food. Perhaps, you two could have a cordial conversation,” she said, leaving out the ‘<em>instead of scaring him with a corpse</em>’ part.</p><p>        It hurt now, but she knew Enoch would be fine. Even if he wouldn't, she had a bad feeling that there would be more dire matters to focus on in the near future.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. Criticism is always appreciated. =)<br/>Check me out on Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/vi.nyctae/?hl=en">@vi.nyctae</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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